"Plight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... friend, knowing of my plight, has just telephoned about a very fine New Thought school which will be glad to receive my ward. Well, they'll have some entirely new thoughts in that school which they've ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... in evil plight; but as the night wore on they saw that a great fire sprang up in the midst of the sound over against there whereas they had come. But when Grettir's shipmates saw the fire, they said one to the other that he would be a happy man who might get it, and ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... I was depressed, melancholy, and under a continued consternation, something of which the morning sun might dissipate, so that I should be able to take a heartier view of my woful plight. So after a good look seawards and at the heavens to satisfy myself on the subject of the weather, and after a careful inspection of the moorings of the boat, I entered her, feeling very sure that, if a sea set in from the west or south and tumbled her, the motion would quickly arouse ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... he was in the same plight, as to a delayed decision, but he did not speak as though he were very hopeful of being ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... and torrential rain. Sometimes the roof and sides collapsed, as the Oxfords found to their cost when an iron girder killed four men. Sometimes the pressure of water merely caused leakage, but in either case the result was eventually the same. The plight of the men without shelter was often extremely wretched. They lived in water and liquid mud, which mingled with their food and with the fabric of their clothes. However, it was found possible to hold the line more thinly, ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... made us all very melancholy, and it is difficult to say which of the two we cursed most heartily in secret for our misfortunes, Cortes or Salazar, for we gave them ten thousand maledictions, and our hearts sunk within us to think of our miserable plight after all our fatigues and dangers. Cortes retired to his chamber, and did not appear again till the evening, when we unanimously entreated him to hasten to Mexico, that he might recover the government from the usurper. He replied kindly: "My dear friends, this villainous ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... back with a large piece of ice, which he placed in the carriage. Lovaina told him to break off a lump for my room. He became indignant, and in pantomime vividly described the suffering of guests at the Tiare with the ice exhausted, and Lovaina's plight if she could sell no ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... to myself, after a long cogitation, "if she wants to marry me, she must go to James Town for a parson, and if I once get there, I will contrive, as soon as extra constables are sworn in, to break off the match." But, seriously, I was in an awkward plight. There was something in that woman that was awful, and I could imagine her revenge to be most deadly. I thought the old Indian squaw to be bad enough, but this new mistress was a thousand times worse. What a hard fate, I thought, ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... command of Captain Grigg and Lieutenant Shepherd, to help move the Federal prisoners from Richmond, Va., to Andersonville, Ga. We were on this service until 26th of March. These prisoners were in a pitiable plight and infected with small-pox. William Allen and Pink Pryor caught it from them; don't see why we all did not. During this time or early in March the Brigade made an expedition against Suffolk, Va., and after a running fight with negro cavalry, took that town, but did not hold it long. ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... red cloak—alack!—as was presently seen when they dismounted, that gentleman was in a sorry plight. He wore a leather jerkin, so cut and soiled that any groom might have disdained it; a pair of green breeches, frayed to their utmost; and coarse boots of untanned ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... In this plight, therefore, he went home, and refrained himself as long as he could, that his wife and children should not perceive his distress; but he could not be silent long, because that his trouble increased. Wherefore at length he brake his mind to his wife ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... in this plight. We have said, "Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up his tender mercies?" From our prison-cell we send up the appeal to our Brother in the glory: "Help us; for if Thou leavest us to our fate, we shall question if Thou art He." We are tempted to stumbling. We are like ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... between the sections of the senate, and as having a statesman's acquaintance with the secrets of all cabals: at times the appointment to the most important posts of command was decided by a word from his mistress Praecia. Such a plight was only possible where none of the men taking part in politics rose above mediocrity: any man of more than ordinary talent would have swept away this system of factions like cobwebs; but there was in reality the saddest lack of men ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... I instantly forgot my plight and my natural instincts asserted themselves. As if I had been then what I had been ten days before, I ordered Chryseros to loose Agathemer and he obeyed me, as if I had been what I felt ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... with life expire: Our vow'd affections both have often tried, 830 Nor any love but yours could ours divide. Then, by my love's inviolable band, By my long suffering, and my short command, If e'er you plight your vows when I am gone, Have pity ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... politely, "but you've really entertained me more now than one could expect from a gentleman in your distressing plight. Come, Rex." She turned back again at the hemlocks which flanked the forest path. "I'll ask Miss Westfall to send some men," ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... recalling the separate events of the day. The court room had been crowded to the verge of suffocation; when he entered it a sudden hush and a mighty craning of necks had been his welcome, and he had felt his cheeks redden and pale with a sense of shame at his hapless plight. Those many pairs of eyes that were fixed on him seemed to lay bare his inmost thoughts; he had known no refuge from their ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... there were many in different plights, and according to their plight, kept in different places. The well bound were ranged in the sanctuary of Mr. Bronte's study; but the purchase of books was a necessary luxury to him, and as it was often a choice between binding an old one, or buying a new one, the familiar volume, which had been hungrily read by all the members ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... rage and mortification sprang to his eyes. He recalled his own feelings in instances where shame had fallen upon other men; he recalled his own easy indifference and the temptation to laugh at the plight of the poor devils. It had never entered his mind that some day he might be the object of like consideration in others more or less ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Crow was alarmed. Never in all his life had he found himself in such a plight. He stayed at home only long enough to tie his foot up in a bandage, which made it look bigger than ever. And then he hurried off as fast as he could fly to call upon Aunt Polly Woodchuck, who was said ...
— The Tale of Old Mr. Crow • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the hard stones and dashed after it. But the enemy, by this, had my fellows on the run, and were driving them at stretch gallop. To worsen my plight, as I pursued I caught sound of hoofs pounding behind and, as it seemed, overtaking me; supposed that a horseman was riding me down; and, reining the mare back fiercely, slued about to meet his onset. It proved to be the poor pack-horse I had left in the valley! He must have galloped ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... most eligible from her crippled state; and this mode pursued, I see nothing to prevent the capture of the five or six Ships of the Enemy's Van. The two or three Ships of the Enemy's Rear[122] must either bear up, or wear; and, in either case, although they would be in a better plight probably than our two Van-Ships (now in the Rear) yet they would be separated, and at a distance to leeward, so as to give our Ships time to refit; and by that time, I believe, the Battle would, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... stretched out to seize upon me. Oh! it was then I gave such a cry—and I fled! fled! fled! but the old woman pursued me—yes, the corpse tracked me behind; and she has only just now disappeared, on hearing the sound of your voice. I then hid behind this tree, where you now see me, in a piteous plight." ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... feels it considerate to warn purchasers that they are "five cents, straight" and not six for a quarter. I saw that if the collector before me were subject to human moments, he must be suffering one now. So, while he smoked, I told him freely of Miss Caroline, of her furniture and her plight. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... and plight, she led the pony this way and that, up and down, listening, trying to force a shout through her swollen lips. At length, in despair, she knew she could search no more. A lifelessness of feeling was creeping upon her. Mechanically she walked beside her pony, and it was the animal ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... load upon my head and shoulders to hold my face down, I was obliged, near as I was to the window, instantly to raise it again to avoid suffocation. I need not, my dear friend, ask your commiseration, when I tell you, that in this plight, from half an hour past eleven till near two in the morning, I sustained the weight of a heavy man, with his knees in my back, and the pressure of his whole body on my head. A Dutch surgeon who had taken his seat upon my left shoulder, and a Topaz (a black Christian soldier) bearing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... time. It had to do with that hard-testing period, just after his meeting with Carlin, when he had journeyed to Poona to confer with the eldest brother, Roderick Deal, and had been forced to wait more than a month. In that interval he had learned about hyenas at first hand, through the plight of Beatrice Hichens and the children; also his servant Bhanah had come to him, and the Great Dane, Nels; still it had been a vague stretch of days, ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... noiselessly about, very grave and silent, as if doing penance for some violation of the code of honor. By many gentle, indirect approaches, I perceived that part of his tail-feathers were undeveloped. The sylvan prince could not think of returning to court in this plight,—and so, amid the falling leaves and cold rains of autumn, was patiently biding ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... fiercely on the top of his head, he carefully drew the bushy top of the poplar sapling into such a position that it gave him shade. As its roots were still aground, it showed no tendency to float off and forsake him in his plight. ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... insulting to Arved, who, however, let it pass because of their mutual plight. If they fell to fighting, detection would ensue. So ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... time before I got my senses again. When I did I found that I was tied hand and foot, and was lying there on the sands, with three or four of our fellows in the same plight as myself. They all belonged to the jolly-boat in which I had come ashore. The other boat had made a shift to push off with some of its hands and get back to the ship; but I did not know that until ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... ghost notified others in kindred plight of the success that had attended her efforts, it is certain that, if the contemporary records are to be accepted, the few short years of life remaining to her were largely occupied in ministering to the wants of distressed spirits. Phantom monks, nobles, peasants, pressed upon her with terrible ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... not here! O, how that word doth play With both our fortunes, differing, like ourselves, Both one; and yet divided, as opposed! I high, thou low: O, this our plight of place Doubly presents the two lets of our love, Local and ceremonial height, and lowness: Both ways, I am too high, and thou too low, Our minds are even yet; O, why should our bodies, That are their slaves, be so without their rule? I'll cast myself down to thee; ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... in order to get rid of them he sent them to the University of Salamanca, where, out of sight, they were out of mind, for he thought no more about them, and did not even send them the means of subsistence. In these straits, after struggling for some months against their wretched plight, the lads were obliged to leave Salamanca, and beg their way home, tramping barefoot through France and Italy, till they made their way back to Rome, where they found their father harsher and ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... favourite's aim; In vain a rival barred his claim, Whose fate with Clare's was plight, For he attaints that rival's fame With treason's charge—and on they came, In mortal lists to fight. Their oaths are said, Their prayers are prayed, Their lances in the rest are laid, They meet in mortal shock; And, hark! the throng, with thundering cry, Shout 'Marmion! Marmion!' ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... and mother-bird, In you what trouble will be stirred When, home returned from weary flight, You learn your babies' hapless plight! ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... (Sunday).—The night was very bad—thunder and lightning, torrents of rain—the road knee-deep in mud and water, and often blocked up with waggons "come to grief." I pitied the wretched plight of the unfortunate soldiers who were to follow us. Our progress was naturally very slow indeed, and we took eight hours ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... there, like those of some captured wild animal which fears danger; and as he looked he caught sight of the footman gazing at him with a peculiar grin upon his countenance, which seemed to be quite friendly, and indicated that the man rather enjoyed the plight in which his young master ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... her hand the slow wheel stoppeth, Silken flax from distaff droppeth, And a cruel, killing pain Striketh up from heart to brain; And she knoweth by that token That the spinning all is vain, That the troth-plight has been spoken, And the thread of life thus broken Never can ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... scarcely sat down when the door again resounded, and she played over the same game as she had done with the cauzee, who on his also entering the bed-chamber was somewhat pleased at seeing a brother magistrate in the same ridiculous plight with himself. The venerable lovers condoled by signs with each other, but dared not speak for fear of discovery. The chief of the butchers, on his arrival, was next ushered up stairs, and his present received, then made to undress and put on a ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... it's just as easy to bear blessings, mother," began Jewel, and then she noticed her child's plight. "Darling Anna Belle, what are you doing!" she exclaimed, picking up the doll and brushing her dress. "I shouldn't think you had any more backbone than an error-fairy! Now don't look sorry, dearie, because to-day it's your turn ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... orders! He sings; the girls join in. "We have done the business; All the trade is driven. The betrothal we will plight, And upon the wedding night A fine feast ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... the plate, and "him as formerly wore the bishop's mitre" with the jewels, the Dwarf gets out of society by being, as he significantly expresses it, "sold out," and in this plight returns penitently one evening to the show-house of his still-admiring proprietor. Mr. Magsman happens at the moment to be having a dull tete-a-tete with a young man without arms, who gets his living by writing with his toes, ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... are around us everywhere, many known to my readers personally, and any number who may be known to them by a very short walk from their own dwellings, who are in this very plight! Their vicious habits and destitute circumstances make it certain that without some kind of extraordinary help, they must hunger and sin, and sin and hunger, until, having multiplied their kind, and filled up the measure of their miseries, the gaunt fingers of death will close upon ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... of me in the street one night. He was in the most pitiable plight, but I recognized the man, and I got him to tell me his history, or at least the outline of it. In brief, it amounted to this—he had been ruined ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... the loss of a victory or two; wherefore the wing of the tyrant was clipped again, as to boasting,—I mean in comparison of what he would have done, if the Diabolonians had put the town to the same plight to which he had put ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... his journey, however, Hugh Flaxman had at last confessed himself to Catherine and Robert. His obvious plight made any further scruples on their part futile, and what they had they gave him in the way of sympathy. Also Robert, gathering that he already knew much, and without betraying any confidence of Rose's, gave him a hint or two on the subject of Langham. But more not the friendliest ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... you should have seen him shiver When they pulled him from the river. He was in a sorry plight! Dripping wet, and such a fright! Wet all over, everywhere, Clothes, and arms, and face, and hair: Johnny never will forget What it is to ...
— Struwwelpeter: Merry Tales and Funny Pictures • Heinrich Hoffman
... cock-sparrow took her up tenderly in his bill, and flew away home with his precious burden. Now, just as he was crossing the big river in front of his house, the old hen-sparrow, in her gay dress, looked out of the window, and when she saw her old husband bringing home his young bride in such a sorry plight, she burst out laughing shrilly, and called aloud, 'That is right! that is right! Remember what ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... Indra's heaven, so at least 'tis said, No nuptial rites prevail[55], nor is the bride Led to the altar by her future lord; But all in secret does the bridegroom plight His troth, and each unto the other vow Mutual allegiance. Such espousals, too, Are authorised on earth, and many daughters Of royal saints thus wedded to their lords Have still received their ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... Birdie, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... should be able to subsist, even if he could evade those who sought him, had thus become problematical. John Steele fingered that last sovereign; started to turn, when he caught the look in the other's eyes. Did it recall to him his own plight but a short twenty-four ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... speeding inland in the extra coach of a special train carrying the mails. The hours I passed in Durban were not without occupation. The hospital ship 'Sumatra' lay close to our moorings, and as soon as it was light I visited her to look for friends, and found, alas! several in a sorry plight. All seemed to be as well as the tenderest care and the most lavish expenditure of money could make them. All told much the same tale—the pluck and spirit of the troops, the stubborn unpretentious valour of the Boer, the searching musketry. ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... have done all I could—Cousin Manasseh knows it—to show him I can be none of his. I have told him,' said she, blushing, but determined to say the whole out at once, 'that I am all but troth-plight to a young man of our own village at home; and, even putting all that on one side, I wish ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... well-composed figure of Mr. Jefferson's young secretary, social captain of matters at the Executive Mansion, and personal aide to the President. His quick glance caught sight of the gathering line of carriages; a second glance estimated the plight of those now jammed into the anteroom like so many cattle and ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... in sandy valley, Bugle that screamed a warning of surprise, Shreds of the colour torn before the rally, Jewel of troth-plight seen by dying eyes— Welcome, dear tokens of the lad we mourn. Tell how that day his faithful heart was leaping; Help me, who linger in the home forlorn, Throw me a ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... Still, if he be not gone, I think we might persuade him to take a trip on the craft you speak of. It was once Harry's sinister luck to slip overboard in the harbour of Guaymas—dropping almost into the jaws of a tintorero shark—and my good fortune to be able to rescue him out of his perilous plight. He is not the man to be ungrateful; and, if still in San Francisco, I think you may count upon him for taking service on board this Chilian vessel. True, he's only one, but worth two—ay, ten. He not only knows how to work a ship's sails, but on a pinch could take a lunar, and make ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... showed us such a tumult of passions rising at once in one bosom! or what buskined hero standing under the load of them, could have more effectually moved his spectators, by the most pathetic speech, than poor miserable Nokes did, by this silent eloquence, and piteous plight of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... bell, and committed it to a servant's care; and then I inquired what had urged her to escape from Wuthering Heights in such an unlikely plight, and where she meant to go, as she refused ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... twenty-four hours the rain had been falling incessantly, Turenne's army had been marching on the previous day, and had been fighting for seven hours, and was incapable of further exertions, while that of Enghien was in little better plight, having passed the night in the rain on the ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... plight, Vasishtha said, 'O amiable one, thou art lowing repeatedly and I am hearing thy cries. But, O Nandini, even Viswamitra is taking thee away by force, what can I do in this matter, as I ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... said, "Do not come whining here, Sir Facing-both-ways. I hate you worst of all the gods in Olympus, for you are ever fighting and making mischief. You have the intolerable and stubborn spirit of your mother Juno: it is all I can do to manage her, and it is her doing that you are now in this plight: still, I cannot let you remain longer in such great pain; you are my own offspring, and it was by me that your mother conceived you; if, however, you had been the son of any other god, you are so destructive that by this time you should have been lying lower ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... marry, grubbing in the dirt and soiling her hands in that style! It was his impression that only Dutch women worked in a garden; and for all he knew of its products she might be setting out a potato plant. Quick Edith caught his expression, and while she crimsoned with vexation at her plight, felt a new and sudden sense of contempt for the semblance of a man ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... outlined against the dim moonlight. The youth glanced furtively at them, comprehending more fully than at any time before the sad mistake he had made in disobeying the orders of Kenton. But for that he would not have been in his present plight. ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... crag and bird, Frost and sun and eldest night, To me their aid preferred, To me their comfort plight;— "Courage! we are thine allies, And with this hint be wise,— The chains of kind The distant bind; Deed thou doest she must do, Above her will, be true; And, in her strict resort To winds and ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... was a pitiful plight. No sane man would venture down such a chasm, impenetrable with thorns, and night descending. So we built a beacon fire and waited for dawn. All during the long dark hours we heard the distant appeal of the hounds, ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... people that possess it; but, tell me, they of the fat marsh, and they whom the wind drives, and they whom the rain beats, and they who encounter with such sharp tongues, why are they not punished within the ruddy city if God be wroth with them? and if he be not so, why are they in such plight?" ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... in not wishing to see you in such a plight," replied Fink. "Ladies fare worst of all. All that constitutes their toilette vanishes entirely in torrents such as these. Do you know the costume of the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... beatings of his heart, but they were due as much to excitement as to fear. In truth he was more excited than afraid; for he had absolutely nothing to lose save a suit of old clothes and his horse, and both of these were in sorry enough plight to be little tempting to those hardy ruffians, who were accustomed to have travellers to rob of ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... was in a worse plight than ever. There was no commissario to be had at that hour. I was in total darkness; not a door was open; nor was there an individual in the street; and, recollecting the reputation Rome had of late acquired for ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... Lady Sparrow had returned home in the sad plight in which they had first found her, weeping and bleeding from the mouth, her whole family and relations had done little else but speak of the cruelty of the old woman. "How could she," they asked each other, "inflict such a heavy punishment for ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... proposal to go to the Mississippi Steel Company was voted down, because Mississippi Steel was in the hands of Wall Street men; and neither Judge Dupree nor General Montague had realised at that time the hopelessness of the plight of ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... passion's over. Woman, that fair and fond deceiver, How prompt are striplings to believe her! How throbs the pulse, when first we view The eye that rolls in glossy blue, Or sparkles black, or mildly throws A beam from under hazel brows! How quick we credit every oath, And hear her plight the willing troth! Fondly we hope 'twill last for ay, When, lo! she changes in a day. This record will for ever stand,' "Woman, thy vows are trac'd ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... and Dennis looked around vainly for some additional covering. The thronging fugitives were all in a similar plight, and their only course was simply to endure till ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... and that he must bear their cold looks and colder silence without seeming to notice them. He had schooled himself to the task, and he was now performing it. It was not only that he would have to move among men without being noticed, but that he must endure to pass the whole evening in the same plight. But he was resolved, and he was now doing it. He bowed to the Speaker with more than usual courtesy, raising his hat with more than usual care, and seated himself, as usual, on the third opposition-bench, but with more than his usual fling. He was a big ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... Yorkshire and Lancashire shake with your shout on that occasion. The ringers cracked a bell in Briarfield belfry; it is dissonant to this day. The Association of Merchants and Manufacturers dined together at Stilbro', and one and all went home in such a plight as their wives would never wish to witness more. Liverpool started and snorted like a river-horse roused amongst his reeds by thunder. Some of the American merchants felt threatenings of apoplexy, and had themselves bled—all, like wise men, at this first moment of prosperity, prepared to rush into ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... and tied sandals to our feet made of bark which we cut from the trees with sharp stones, fixing them on by means of the tough flexible roots of a plant called bejucos. Travelling in this sorry plight, we came in two days to the village of Yaguarrama, where Fray Bartholome de las Casas was then parish priest, who was afterwards bishop of Chiapa. I went next day to the town of Chipiona, belonging to Alonso de Avila, where I ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... reading their way. On Sundays the congregation rarely numbered a dozen. It seemed that, as the end of the Vicar's task drew nearer, so the prospect of filling the church receded and became more shadowy. And if his was a queer plight, Jacky Pascoe's was queerer. The Bryanite continued to come by night and help, but at rarer intervals. He was discomforted in mind, as anyone could see, and at length he took Mr. Raymond ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of course,—and since, compared with the others, we were virtually unarmed, we ought, I suppose, to have been thankful that we were not murdered in cold blood, as doubtless we should have been if our dangerous plight had not so delighted Kipping's cruel humor, and if both Falk and Kipping had not felt certain that they would never see or hear of us again. But we found little comfort in realizing that, as matters ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... escaped ourselves, but see what a pitiable plight our oxen are in. They will not be able to draw another load in a week, at least; and what are we to ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... the cash, kid! Got to have it, don't you see? It was I who landed us in this plight and I'm the one to get us out. ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... how the time passes, Truth and Conscience, that show the bounded vse and decent forme of things, are tyed vp, and cannot be heard. Still Fructum non invenio, I finde no fruits. I am sorry to passe the fig-tree in this plight: but as I finde it, so I must leave it, till the Lord mend it."—Pp. 39, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... shall not be abased, Till the day of the uttermost trial when the war-shield of Odin is raised. So my word is the word of wooing, and I bid thee remember thine oath, That here in this hall fair-builded we twain may plight the troth; That here in the hall of thy waiting thou be made a wedded wife, And be called the Queen of the Niblungs, ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... anything I ever told you about Finn. Ochone, Shorsha! perhaps you will be telling me about the snake once more? I think the tale would do me good, and I have need of comfort, God knows, Ochone!" Seeing Murtagh in such a distressed plight, I forthwith told him over again the tale of the snake, in precisely the same words as I have related it in the first part of this history. After which I said, "Now, Murtagh, tit for tat; ye will be telling me one of the old stories of Finn-ma-Coul." "Och, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... had been rebuilt by Ramses II. and decorated by the Rames-sides, was in a sorry plight when the XXIInd dynasty came into power. Sheshonq I. did little or nothing to it, but Osorkon I. entirely remodelled it, and Osorkon II. added several new halls, including, amongst others, one in which he celebrated, in ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... "They were in sore plight for fighting, for most of them had been obliged to sell even their arms and armour to procure food. Spinola, hearing of their approach pushed forward with a strong force to intercept them, and so came upon them at Fleurus, eight miles from Namur, on ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... the day. Hall now got another man in Thorolf's place in the boat, and went on fishing as before. Thorolf was ill-contented with his lot, for he felt he had come to shame in their dealings together; yet he remained in the islands with the determination to set straight the humble plight to which he had been made to bow against his will. [Sidenote: Hall's death] Hall, in the meantime, did not fear any danger, and thought that no one would dare to try to get even with him in his own country. ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... enough to hold a whole chorus of singers. The enormous pie in which twenty-eight musicians were discovered when the crust was cut may have been the original of that pasty whose opening revealed four-and-twenty blackbirds in a similar plight. Wild animals wandered gravely at a machinist's will through deep forests, but in the midst of the counterfeit brutes there was at least one live lion, for Gilles le Cat[5] received twenty shillings from the duke for ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... into the room, with her dog Fanchon following in the same lame plight,—she laughing heartily at their similarity of gait, and holding up a letter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... the same way that Germans are looked upon here, as quite outside the pale of common morality. Fully realising what this must mean for me, these kindly Germans would go off into a day dream of wonderment as to how they might feel in a similar plight, and one ended up with the reflection, 'Ja, es ist halt jetzt die Zeit der Maertyrer' (it is indeed the time of the martyrs once more)." Surely there is something strangely poignant about the convinced and steadfast martyrdom and ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... likelihood of his ever being called upon to do it. So he stood in the doorway of his deserted shop, for all his young assistants, his curlers and shampooers, had been mobilized, and looked up and down the deserted street, and congratulated himself that he was not in as bad a plight, financially and otherwise, as ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... was quite out of ammunition, except canister, which could not be used with safety over the heads of our troops. Our outer lines of breastworks had been captured, and were held by the enemy. So much as was left of Berry's division was in absolute need of re-forming. Its supports were in equally bad plight. The death of Berry, and the present location of our lines in the low ground back of the crest just lost, where the undergrowth was so tangled and the bottom so marshy, that Ward, when he marched to Berry's relief, had failed to find him, obliged the Federals ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... Mrs. Turner came to speak with me and Joyce, and I took them and shewed them the manner of the Houses sitting, the door-keeper very civilly opening the door for us. We went walking all over White Hall, whither General Monk was newly come, and we saw all his forces march by in very good plight and stout officers. After dinner I went to hear news, but only found that the Parliament House was most of them with Monk at White Hall, and that in his passing through the town he had many calls to him for a free Parliament, but little ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... get the rope to himself. With that rope John hoped to hang his brother yet. 'Dearest Madame,' he said, 'Richard cannot marry in Navarre even if he were willing. Once he has been betrothed, and has broken plight; once he saw his mistress betrothed, and broke her plight. Now he is wedded, or says that he is. Suppose that you get him to break this wedlock, will you give him another woman to deceive? There is no more faithless beast ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... ring she gave me Right royally dwarf-worked, To none will I pass it For prayer or for sword-stroke, Save to him who can claim it By love and by troth plight, Let that hero speak If ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... and hastily to the children of his tribe, and the men came one by one to shake hands with Dalgetty, while the women, clamorous in their gratitude, pressed round to kiss even the hem of his garment. "They plight their faith to you," said Ranald MacEagh, "for requital of the good deed you have done to ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... then Ivanov's chief of staff, is said to have counselled a Russian retreat like those which lured Charles XII and Napoleon to their doom; but the temptations of Austrian weakness and German concentration on the West and the plight of France and Belgium led to the adoption of other advice and the premature invasion of Prussia, Galicia, and Hungary; and in August 1915 it was too late for a voluntary and innocuous retreat. The ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... the forceful sonnets of that tragic Portuguese, Antero de Quental, who died by his own hand. Feeling acutely for the plight of his country on the occasion of the British ultimatum in 1890, he wrote as follows:[66] "An English statesman of the last century, who was also undoubtedly a perspicacious observer and a philosopher, Horace Walpole, said that for those who feel, life is a tragedy, and a comedy for those ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... and their belongings into the big truck. Just as they were about to start they saw some infantry coming, seven men whom they knew, but in such a plight! They were unshaven, with white, sunken faces, and great dark hollows under their eyes. They were simply "all in," and ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... hopefulness which she did not feel, "I am surprised at you. You haven't given up hope. It is just the darkness and being hungry that makes things appear so dreadful. I have been thinking about our plight, and when daylight comes I am going to try to climb up the wall to the window. The mud has broken away between some of the logs, so that I can get my foot in the opening. We shall have to dig it away ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... upon the highway, and if we mistake not 'tis the King's." Cedric loosed himself from Constance and hurried from the room. She flew after him; but he had passed Sir Julian and flung himself upon a horse. Pomphrey saw her plight, and, whether from pity, gallantry, or intrigue, lifted her quickly—before she had time to withdraw from him—into a coach. Cedric remonstrated with him; but Julian was confident of his motive and started the coach at full speed. They flew along in the opposite direction ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... cunning old Spider then laughed outright; "Poor fellow!" he said, "you are in a sad plight! Ha! ha! what a dunce you must be to suppose, That the heart of a Spider should pity ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... conjurors incontinently begin playing on their instruments and singing and dancing; and the conjurors dance to such a pitch that at last one of them shall fall to the ground lifeless, like a dead man. And then the devil entereth into his body. And when his comrades see him in this plight they begin to put questions to him about the sick man's ailment. And he will reply: "Such or such a spirit hath been meddling with the man,[NOTE 9] for that he hath angered the spirit and done it some despite." Then they say: "We pray thee to pardon him, and to take of his blood or of his goods ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... grievance in such a case? Helen, above all, would never show it; and Althea was at once oppressed, and at the same time oddly sustained by the thought that she had, all inevitably, done her friend an injury. She lay awake at night, turning over in her mind Helen's present plight and framing loving plans for the future. She took refuge in such plans from a sense of having come to an end of things. To think of Helen, and of what, with their wealth, she and Franklin could do for Helen, seemed, really, her strongest hold on life. It ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... many men who could have preserved their reason under monstrous circumstances such as these, and I take it that there is no man living who dare up and say that he would not be abominably frightened were he to find himself in such a plight. In these papers I have endeavored to show Captain Owen Kettle as a brave man, indeed the bravest I ever knew; but I do not think even he would blame me if I said he was badly ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... was in a sad fix. And for my part, when I first heard of his plight I did not see how he was ever going to ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey
... chaotic, totally incapable of keeping order among these murderous Bedouins. The country would be a second Persia under her. Persia is intolerable enough for the Europeans who trade there at present: but the plight of this country might easily be worse. We are bound to control the bit from Basra to the sea to protect existing interests. The whole future of that area—as of all Mesopotamia—depends on a scientific scheme of drainage and irrigation. At present half the country is ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his bed, still reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the plungings of the Roman race-horse but so much the more strike his steel tags into him; as one who in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilation until the fit be passed; and at last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... take the Almighty to witness That I Frances Coke Yonger daughter to Sir Ed. Coke late Lord Chiefe Justice of England, doe give myselfe absolutely to Wife to Henry Ven. Viscount Balboke, Erle of Oxenford, to whom I plight my fayth and inviolate vows, to keepe myselfe till Death us do part: And if even I breake the least of these I pray God Damne mee body and soule in Hell fyre in the world to come: And in thys world I humbly Beseech God the Earth may open and Swallowe mee up quicke to ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... had hold of Sir Percival's horse and thereupon others swarmed upon him and what with the blows of their maces and clubs, he was in sorry plight. Nor could Sir Launcelot turn to help him for he was in great conflict with the two knights and a large number of them on foot and Sir Neil equally so. As for Allan he had already ridden down two of the attackers and had ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... the power of the crafty Helge. Bearing down quickly upon the evil-workers, it despatched one of them with its sharp prow, while Frithiof, with one thrust of his weapon, destroyed the other. But the vessel was filled with water, and the sailors were forced to bale continually. In this desperate plight the Orkney Islands were reached, and the exhausted crew were borne ashore. Frithiof, too, was worn with fatigue, yet he carried eight of his men at one time from the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... to Heyst how it happened. At that precise moment he had no explanation ready for the man on the wharf, who, he guessed, must be wondering much more at the presence of his visitors than at their plight. ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... rowed quickly back past where the prisoners sat contentedly enough; save the cow, which kept making the great rock wall echo with her lowings, while three more of her kind now stood on high, gazing down at her plight. ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... occasion of offending God, by fleeing to the mountains, where she wandered about for almost four months, suffering, although with much satisfaction, many hardships and privations; nor did she return to the village until she learned that he who had brought her to such a plight ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... would alter matters. Drusus spent the evening in a pathetically forced attempt to read his Callimachus. He was weary physically, and intended to retire early. AEmilia, who felt sorry enough for the plight of her rather distant cousin, had tried to console him and divert him with guitar[84] music, and had called in an itinerant piper,[85] but these well-meant efforts at amusement had been dreary failures. Drusus had just bidden his body-servants undress him, when he was informed that ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... lord come in with me, and heard that he was to lie there that night, seeing that as yet we had no more beds than we had bought for our own need from old Zabel Nering the forest-ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore she took me aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her little godchild having lain on it that morning; and she could no wise put the young nobleman into hers, although she would willingly creep in by the maid herself. And when I asked her why not? she blushed scarlet, and began to cry, and would not show herself again the whole evening, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... friends married, and felt soured thereat. Thenceforth her way is marked by tears, by utter weakness, by a woful self-surrender. Threatened by her only God, her son, heart-broken at finding herself in a plight so unnatural, she falls desperate. She tries to drown all her memories in sleep. At length comes an issue for which neither of them can fairly account, an issue such as nowadays will often happen in the poorer quarters of large ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... sir; a penny—won't you buy? I'm cold and wet and tired, a sorry plight; Don't turn your back, sir; take one just to try; I haven't made a single sale to-night. Oh, thank you, sir; but take the pencil too; I'm not a beggar, I'm a business man. Pencils I deal in, red and black and blue; It's hard, but still I do the best I can. ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... pathetic case; no doubt he hadn't the remotest conception what he really was—and no doubt, also, there are many who would honestly take his view. As if the fact that he was born with all possible advantages did not make him and his plight inexcusable. It passes my comprehension why people of his sort, when suffering from the calamities they have deliberately brought upon themselves by laziness and self-indulgence and extravagance, should get a sympathy that is withheld from those ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... General Samuel Graham, then an officer in Fraser's Highlanders, in his "Memoirs," though speaking of the march to Cross Creek, is silent about Highlanders offering their services. Nor is it at all likely, that, in the sorry plight the British army reached Cross Creek in, the Highlanders would unite, especially when the outlook was gloomy, and the Americans ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... by Messer Galeaz and the Marquis of Mantua to the French outposts. More than two thousand men had already died of sickness and starvation. Almost all their horses had been eaten, and the survivors were in a miserable plight. Many perished by the roadside, and Commines found fifty troopers in a fainting condition in a garden at Cameriano, and saved their lives by feeding them with soup. Even then one man died on the spot, and four others never reached the camp. ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... servant dear, If thou wilt only fight for me, My sister bright to thee I’ll plight, And she thy wedded wife ...
— Marsk Stig - a ballad - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... guilty," exclaimed I, "of having expressed any sort of affection for her. I know somebody who can best bear me witness in this respect." Emilia smiled, and rejoined, "I understand you; and, if we are not discreet and determined, we shall all find ourselves in a bad plight together. What will you say if I entreat you not to continue your lessons? You have, I believe, four tickets yet of the last month: and my father has already declared that he finds it inexcusable to take your money any longer, unless you wish to devote yourself ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... times, from 1649 onwards, when his affairs were in the most hopeless plight, Charles had clearly announced that he could make no terms with those "who voted or acted in that bloody murder." Amongst the vast majority in all parties who accepted the Restoration, there were ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... Margaret," she said, "I really don't care two straws about going to The Cedars. From what you have told me the Danvers do not appear to be a very attractive family, and I painted my own plight blacker than I need have done. I have got somewhere to go. The empty school at Hampstead is open to me for the rest of the summer holidays. Miss Marvel gave me leave to spend them there if I had nowhere to go, so I shall be all right. So, for goodness ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... thee. On the other hand, O bull of the Bharata race, fight with him with thy arms, putting forth as much strength only as thy antagonist hath now left!' Then that slayer of hostile heroes, the son of Pandu, thus addressed by Krishna, understood the plight of Jarasandha and forthwith resolved upon taking his life. And that foremost of all men endued with strength, that prince of the Kuru race, desirous of vanquishing the hitherto unvanquished Jarasandha, mustered all his ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... contains news which I am sure will be very welcome to you all. It is to the effect that our wireless operator has succeeded in getting into touch with the Bolivia and acquainting the captain of that vessel with our somewhat unfortunate plight. The Bolivia, as some of you are doubtless aware, is homeward bound, but upon learning the news of our accident, her captain has unhesitatingly interrupted his voyage and is at this moment heading for our position as rapidly as his powerful ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... I jumped out, and ran to his assistance; but he was so prickly all over, that it was difficult to lay hold of him. His needles and pins ran into my fingers in a dozen places. To make matters worse, his nose began to bleed, so that he was in a pitiable plight. However, I picked him up at last, found he was not seriously injured, gave him a clean handkerchief (which he promised to return), and started him off again in his cart, in a sitting position ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... to enable them to reach the Jeanne D'Arc, if she was still afloat; then to climb aboard and hunt for provisions and life preservers or something to use for a raft. If he could do this, then they would be in a somewhat better plight, at least for a time. He prayed that the Jeanne D'Arc ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... plight was such that we stood in much need of comforting. Not only were we sick with our many hurts, but we were also prisoners. By the full light of day we examined carefully the cave, and found no outlet to it; and we examined carefully, also, the walls of the canon throughout its full length, ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... knew the truth at last,—they had been deceived by a false hope, led by a false leader. Crying out against him who had brought them to such a plight, so far from home, they vanished one by one, until of the army that had entered the ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... never swears, Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs, Though meekness plants his backward-sloping hat, And non-resistance ties his white cravat, Though his black broadcloth glories to be seen In the same plight with Shylock's gaberdine, Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's chest, Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his rear That chase from port the maddened buccaneer, Feels the same comfort while his acrid words Turn the ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... accuracy, they tumbled off the poop swearing to serve me in a hundred horrible ways when they caught me, and fell again to drinking and quarrelling amongst themselves. I was indeed in an unenviable plight, by no means sure that I would not be slain out of hand when they became sufficiently sober to capture me. As I marked the progress of their damnable orgy I cast about for some plan to take advantage of their condition. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... arms, officers, and volunteer soldiers; and when I reached Belgrade, in May of the year named, there had already been fighting, in which the Servians had by no means got the worst. No word of the Servian tongue had I, and it was the reverse of pleasant for a war correspondent in such plight to learn that outside of Belgrade nobody, or at least hardly anybody, knew a word of any other language than the native Servian. As I ate, I was being attended by a very assiduous waiter, whose alertness and anxiety to please were very conspicuous. He was smart with quite un-Oriental ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... was not unlike that of the lecturer. By some hard luck he happened to be passing that way when the crowd was looking for the Abolitionist, and was discovered. "There he goes," was the cry that was raised, and a fire of eggs and other things was opened upon him. He reached his home in an awful plight, and it was charged that his conversation was not ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... could not see them at the time, there were excellent reasons for not stating there and then the delicious plight in which we had really left Levy's myrmidons. I myself would have driven home our triumph and his treachery by throwing our winning cards upon the table and simultaneously exposing his false play. But Raffles was right, and I should have been wrong, as I was ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... should shine, Purer then the Vestall fire: Nothing here but should be thine, That thy heart can well desire: Where at large we will relate, From what cause our friendship grewe, And in that the varying Fate, Since we first each other knewe: 60 Of my heauie passed plight, As of many a future feare, Which except the silent night, None but onely thou shalt heare; My sad hurt it shall releeue, When my thoughts I shall disclose, For thou canst not chuse but greeue, When I shall recount my woes; There is nothing to that friend, To whose close vncranied ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... his arms, realizing that he must not exhaust his strength in trying to raise his weight hand over hand. Thus, after the first few minutes of fright and after he had dared to open his eyes and take stock of the dangerous plight in which he found himself, he began calmly to reason, as very often one will who finds himself in imminent peril, the situation being too serious to allow him time ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... and all her garment blew, Close rownd about her tuckt with many a plight: Upon her fist ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... another junk with two masts, and in something better plight to look at than the former. When we came on board we found them upon the same errand, but only that they were people of some better fashion than the other; and here we got some plunder, some Turkish stores, a few diamonds in the ear-drops of five ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... class is stronger than my class, the working class. Here, because I'm dangerous to that master class. This isn't said to make myself out a martyr. It's only to make you see things right. I'm not complaining at this plight. I've richly earned it—under ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... were adjusted, the body was raised higher until the weight swung clear. In this plight they became a fearful sight to look upon. The flesh, to support their bodies with the additional weights attached thereto, was raised some eight inches by the skewers, and their heads sinking forward on their breasts, ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... were of the best he did very little sleeping that night. He was in a grave situation. Even if he had a fair field his plight would be serious enough. But he guessed that during the long hours of darkness Durand was busy weaving a net of false evidence from which he could scarcely disentangle himself. Unless Bromfield came forward at once as a witness for him, ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... then all this clamor at the doors of national privacy is well enough; but let them remember that when nations lose their dignity and their racial pride, there is sure to follow the squabbling and the jealousy, the rough speech and vulgar manners, of the domestic circle, in the same plight of spiritual shamelessness. The best that any of us learn is to be a little more patient, a little more charitable, a little more careful of the dignity of others in our own homes, or abroad, and then the light ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... coffin and let fall a tear, departing quickly with a cold smile. Worse than that, the wife sees her husband tortured in gaol; the husband sees his wife a victim to some horrible disease, lands gone, houses destroyed by flood or fire, and everything in an unutterable plight—the reward of former sins." ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... king said to his knights as he sat in a little room in an inn at Zara, "that my plight is a bad one. I am surrounded by enemies, and, alas! I can no longer mount my steed and ride out as at Jaffa to do battle with them. My brother, John Lackland, is scheming to take my place upon the throne of England. Philip of France, whose mind is far better at such matters than at setting ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... doth arise, Removed is, th' Effect surceaseth still. Abstain from Pleasure, and restrain your Will, Subdue Desire, and bridle loose Delight: Use scanted Diet, and forbear your Fill; Shun Secrecy, and talk in open sight: So shall you soon repair your present evil Plight. [1]' ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... one, sinner as I am!" said I. "Nay, Margaret, I doubt not my thoughts have been far unholier than thine. Thou rememberest not, I am sure; but ere we were professed, I was troth-plight unto a young noble, and always that life that I have lost flitteth afore me, as a bird that held a jewel in his beak might lure me on from flower to flower, ever following, never grasping the sweet illusion. Margaret, sister, despise me not for my confession! ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... than once careened so as to ship alarming seas. The air, filled with sleet and icy snow, cut like a knife through the thickest clothing, and again Edward Tilley, swooning with exhaustion and cold, lay lifeless in the bottom of the boat, sadly watched by his brother in hardly better plight and by Carver, who, like the father of a family, carried all his children ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... into which it plunged me. To have suffered, myself,—to have fallen under the ban of suspicion and the disgrace of arrest—had certainly been hard; but it was nothing to beholding another in the same plight through my own rash and ill-advised attempt to better my position and Carmel's by what I had considered a totally ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... every side, but saw nothing that could give him the slightest cause for hope. With every step he was being carried deeper and deeper into the recesses of the jungle where no hunter dare venture, where the elephant, the tiger, and the leopard rule as undisputed masters. His plight was terrible. Who would free him, who could free him of the bonds which held him in subjection to so cruel ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore |
